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IMPORTANT FACTS 

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MANUFACTURERS, IMPORTERS, JOBBERS, RETAILERS, COMMISSION 

MERCHANTS, AND ALL OTHER BUSINESS MEN I TO 

BANKING. INSURANCE, RAILROAD, AND OTHER 

INCORPORATED COMPANIES. 

ILLUSTRATING THE RUINOUS TENDENCY 

OF 

GAMBLING, AND GAMBLING HOUSES. 

UPON THE 

BUSINESS INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



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BY THE 

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FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF GAMBLING. 
No. 2 4 Beekman Street. 



NEW-YORK. 

1852. 






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A FEW 

IMPORTANT FACTS 

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MANUFACTURERS, IMPORTERS, JOBBERS, RETAILERS, COMMISSION 

MERCHANTS, AND ALL OTHER BUSINESS MEN : TO 

BANKING, INSURANCE, RAILROAD, AND OTHER 

INCORPORATED COMPANIES. 

ILLUSTRATING THE RUINOUS TENDENCY 

OF 

GAMBLING, AND GAMBLING HOUSES. 

UPON THE 

BUSINESS INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



BY THE 

^eiisibiisaibi &g§®®Q&TFa®! 

FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF GAMBLING. 
No. 2 4 Beekman Street. 



1 
NEW-YORK 



1852. 
0/ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, 

By LTJCIAN BUELEIGH, 

(as corresponding secretary, 

Of the American Association for the suppression of Gambling,) 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the 

Southern District of New- York. 



Vincent L. Dill, Stereotyper, 
128 Fulton-Street, N. Y. 



GAMBLING FACTS 

FOR BUSINESS MEN. 



PREVALENCE OF GAMING ITS DISASTROUS EFFECTS UPON 

THE BUSINESS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 

The prevalence of Gaming in every section of the United 
States, and especially in the principal cities where the laws 
against it are not stringent or enforced, has, at last, arrested 
the attention of the Business public, and is now calling forth 
the active co-operation of the Business-man and the Philan- 
thropist to suppress it. The necessity for such action is based 
upon the practical results of gambling, as manifested in every 
community where this vice prevails. 

When the gambling houses of Paris were licensed, and all 
classes of the people freely indulged in play, bankruptcies, 
mercantile failures, embezzlements, forgeries, robberies, mur- 
ders and suicides became so frequent, that, in order to arrest 
the tide of ruin which threatened to inundate the whole busi- 
ness interests of France, it was found necessary, not to regu- 
late the vice, but to prohibit it by sumptuary laws. 

The same was equally true of London, and the other cities 
of Great Britian. Whilst the noblemen of England were 
squandering princely fortunes in a single day on their favorite 
race fields, or at the public and private gaming tables, those 
among the lower classes, who were imbued with their spirit, 
emulated their example by descending to the hells of a lower 
grade, where honest — but infatuated traders were manufac- 
tured into bankrupts and criminals. 

A London Magazine, now before the writer, published more 
than half a century ago, in a report of a trial before the 
Court of Common Pleas, for the recovery of money lost at 
the Faro table by a bankrupt tradesman, thus presents the 
views of the Bar and the Bench at that period:— 

" The counsel for the plaintiffs (Mr. Sarjeant Adair,) clearly 
maintained that this was a cause of the utmost importance to 



4 GAMING, AND ITS EFFECTS. 

us as a great commercial nation, and that the very existence 
of civil society itself depended on the crushing of this alarm- 
ing and growing evil. It was to the games of Faro, Hazard, 
Rouge et Noir, &c, more than to horse racing, that so many 
tradesmen of good fortunes and great business owed their 
destruction. Faro itself, was a most inevitable system of 
plunder ; and he was sorry to say that many hundreds were 
ruined by this game alone in St. James's street, and Pall- 
mall. It was not confined to the youth of fortune alone, but 
the decent and respectable tradesmen, as well as the dashing 
clerks of the merchant and banker, were engulfed within its 
vortex !" 

In discussing a point of law, involved in the case, the 
'learned Judge said "he considered the cause of the first im- 
portance to the welfare of Britain, as a commercial nation, 
and which only could continue to prosper, the more they 
endeavored to put a stop to gambling, by which so many of 
the honest but too credulous tradesmen were robbed and 
ruined."* 

Another London work, (The Great Metropolis,) published 
in 1836, presents the same view of the subject as applica- 
ble to that period. In describing the London hells, it says — 

" Among those who frequent the second class of gaming 
houses, are a very great number of city merchants, and city 
clerks in situations of confidence. The merchants resolve on 
becoming gamblers, under the impression that the making of 
a fortune by selling chests of tea, or measuring yards of lace, 
is not only a slow and tedious process, but a very vulgar one. 
To do it by gambling is much more expeditious — so they think 
till they try — and infinitely more easy. To the gaming house, 
therefore, they go, quite full of money ; they leave it without 
a farthing. They repeat the process time after time, and with 
the same result. By-and-by you see them in the * Gazette/ 
Little, perhaps, do their creditors, or the public know the real 
cause of their bankruptcy. The clerkhas the same notions 
as his employer. What is a salary of £200, or £300 a year % 
Nothing at all. He can never save a stiver out of it. Surely 
it would be much wiser to make the sum in one night. To 
the gambling house, therefore, he goes with £400, or £500 of 
his employer's money ; he loses the last farthing of it ; and, 
to save himself, he is off in a tangent to the Antipodes or to 
* Assignees of Brand vs. Wilder, June 3, 1795. 



EMBEZZLEMENTS AND FAILURES 5 

America. * * * Gambling has more to do with city bank- 
ruptcies, embezzlements, frauds, forgeries, &c, than persons, 
unacquainted with the hells, can have any idea of." 

These pictures truthfully represent the ruinous effects of 
gambling upon business men, not only in Paris and London, 
but in every city in Europe, or upon this continent, where 
the vice prevails. 

RUINOUS EFFECTS OF GAMING UPON THE BUSINESS OF THE 

SOUTHERN AND WESTERN STATES, AND UPON 

NORTHERN AND EASTERN MERCHANTS. 

Before the enactment of the stringent laws against 
gaming, now in force in most of the Southern and Western 
States of this Union, gambling prevailed to an alarming ex- 
tent throughout the whole South- Western country, and 
nearly every boat upon the Western rivers swarmed with 
reckless gamblers, who were prowling over the country, 
spreading ruin and desolation in every direction. Merchants, 
Planters, Bankers, Brokers, confidential Clerks and Agents, 
were the especial victims of these men, who artfully con- 
trived to form their acquaintance- — to gain their confidence 
— to induce them to play, and then, when fairly entrapped, 
never abandoned them until they had no more money or 
property to lose, or until their ruin was consummated. From 
the records of those times we might present innumerable in- 
stances of the destruction of Southern and Western mer- 
chants, and other important business men, who sacrificed their 
property, honor, reputation, and even life, at the gaming- 
table ; and who can count the thousands upon thousands lost 
to the merchants of the Eastern and Northern cities in con- 
sequence of the almost universal gambling habits of the 
Southern and Western people, previous to the slaughter of 
the gamblers by the citizens of Vieksburgh, and the passage 
of the sumptuary laws which followed ? 

We do not say that the enactment of severe laws against 
gambling, by many of the State Legislatures has put an end 
to this vice ; we know it has not ; our investigations upon 
this subject teach us that it is merely confined within nar- 
rower limits ; that more caution and secrecy is observed, and ' 
that to compensate for the loss of the masses who are now 
excluded from the gaming rooms, extraordinary efforts are 



6 INDUCED BY GAMING. 

made to induce wealthy or enterprising business men to oc- 
cupy their seats at the gaming table, and that while the pro- 
gress of this gigantic evil is thus partially arrested, and much 
more odious than heretofore, it will become, unless some 
new restraining power is interposed, deeply injurious to the 
business interests of the whole country. We are also aware 
of the fact that gaming prevails, to a great extent, in every 
State in this Union ; and that in all our large cities and vil- 
lages there are clubs of gamblers ; men who live by no other 
employment, and who derive their means of support by plun- 
dering business men who have unfortunately acquired a taste 
for play. 

Country merchants, who at home are accustomed to pass 
their evenings in privately playing Poker, Bluff or Eucre, 
with their friends and neighbors, or against the Faro Bank 
of some strolling blackleg, are almost certain to find their 
way into the gaming houses of Boston, New York, Philadel- 
phia, Baltimore, New Orleans, Cincinnati, or Buffalo, when 
they visit either of those cities to purchase goods ; and hence 
it often happens that the money intended for the importer or 
jobber is lost at the gaming table, and the merchant either 
buys on credit, or returns home without buying, or without 
paying for goods previously purchased, both of which he 
intended to do, and would have done, had he been unknown 
to the gambling fraternity. 

The dangers that beset the path of the country merchant 
who has imbibed a love for play, are far greater than he 
imagines. From the moment he begins to gamble with the 
professional blacklegs of his own locality, he becomes the 
common property of the whole gambling fraternity ; so that 
when he leaves his home, it may be, for the first time, for 
some distant city to purchase goods, the gamblers of that city 
await his arrival with eager anxiety ; for they have been in- 
formed of his coming ; of the probable amount of m<3ney in 
his possession ; of whom he intends to purchase goods ; at 
what hotel he will sojourn, together with an accurate de- 
scription of his person, his mode of playing, his knowledge 
of games, and such other information as may be deemed 
necessary ; and as a compensation, a certain per centage of 
all the money won in consequence of this information, returns 
to the gamblers who gave it. 

Another mode often resorted to by gamblers desirous of 



EMBEZZLEMENTS AND FAILURES 7 

fleecing country merchants, is, to follow them on their jour- 
nies ; become their compagnon dn voyage, stop at the same 
hotel, and then, in the privacy of their own rooms commence, 
if not complete, the work of destruction. The gambling 
merchants of Cincinnati, Cleaveland, Detroit, Toledo, Chica- 
go, Milwaukie, Buffalo, Rochester, Utica, Syracuse, and 
Albany, and all other cities are as well known by certain 
gamblers in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, or 
wherever they purchase goods, as they are in their own pri- 
vate gambling circles at home. How important, therefore, 
for the mercantile interest of the whole country, that gambling 
be suppressed ; and until that desirable end is accomplished, 
the leading merchants in all our principal cities who have a 
proper regard for their financial interests, should know, who 
of their customers, if any, are squandering their means at 
the gaming table. 

PRACTICAL RESULTS OF GAMING IN NEW YORK, BOSTON, 
AND ELSEWHERE. 

In the city of New- York there are a large number of pub- 
lic and private gambling houses, where business men of 
every description nightly congregate. In the more "respect- 
able and fashionable" hells, where the company is intended 
to be " select and private," may be seen officers and clerks 
of banks and insurance companies, merchants, brokers, con- 
fidential agents, clerks and lawyers, seated at the same table 
with wealthy gentlemen of no particular business or charac- 
ter, together with those who have already acquired a fame 
more notorious than enviable ; for the gaming table levels all 
distinctions not based upon ready money ; the honest man 
and the rogue are equally respected ; the thief, lottery or 
policy vender, or burglar, who is a liberal player, and has 
plenty of funds, is as welcome as the merchant who is known 
to be gambling away the property of his creditors, or the 
teller of a bank, who is nightly sporting thousands evidently 
abstracted from the coffers of the institution whose interest 
he is supposed to guard ; or the railroad treasurer or conduc- 
tor, whose continual losses establish beyond doubt, that they 
are gambling upon the proceeds of robbery ; or the confi- 
dential clerk or agent whose annual losses exceed twice or 
thrice the known amount of his salary ; they are all alike 



8 INDUCED BY GAMING. 

welcome, and receive the same respectful attention as long 
as they have money to lose. 

The annual expences of the New York gambling houses, 
together with the profuse private expenditures of the gambling 
fraternity, are incredibly enormous, and it is safe to say that 
at least seventy-five per cent, of the whole amount is lost by 
business men, and therefore, all this money is abstracted from 
the channels of legitimate trade, where it rightfully belongs. 

EMBEZZLEMENTS FROM MONIED INSTITUTIONS, BY GAMBLING 
OFFICERS AND CLERKS. 

The recital of the following well known cases, will demon- 
strate the necessity of sustaining an Institution for the Sup- 
pression of Gambling, considered merely in a business point 
of view. 

During the winter of 1828, the Secretary of a Wall street 
Insurance Company committed suicide at Niblo's Bank Coffee 
House, corner of William and Pine streets, New York. By 
way of explanation and warning, he wrote these words upon 
a card, discovered near his mangled remains. •' My fate 
may be found in the tragedy of the Gamester ! " Upon in- 
vestigation it was discovered that he had embezzled from the 
funds of the Institution about $180,000! the most of which 
had been expended in lottery tickets and lost at the gaming 
table. A few nights before he terminated his unhappy career, 
he lost, at one sitting, the enormous sum of $60,000 ! which, 
prevented his meditated escape from the country, and to 
avoid a life of disgrace he sought refuge in an ignominious 
death. 

Some twenty years ago, the Cashier and Teller of a Hart- 
ford, Connecticut Bank, were discovered to have embezzled 
at various times about $30,000, which they had lost at lottery 
gamblimg. 

At about the same period, the President of a Springfield, 
Massachusetts Bank, proved to be a defaulter to the amount 
of about $40,000, which had been lost among gamblers. 

In 1836, a Teller of the Commercial Bank of Albany, was 
discovered to have embezzled about thirty thousand dollars 
from the funds of that Institution, which had been concealed 
by false entries. A large portion of the money thus stolen, 
had been expended in lottery gambling. The delinquent es- 



EMBEZZLE3IENTS AND FAILURES 9 

caped the officers of Justice by fleeing to Canton, where he 
died. 

The paying teller of the Bank of the Metropolis, at Wash- 
ington City, D. C, a few years ago, took, on one occasion, 
fifty thousand dollars from the funds of that institution, which 
led to the discovery that he was in the habit of gambling, 
and had been embezzling small sums for a long time, which 
he lost at the Faro-table. 

In 1837, Mr. Z. Wardell, the cashier of the Branden 
Bank, of Mississippi, is said to have lost about one hundred 
thousand dollars of that money. Entire sheets of the Bran- 
den Bank bills, uncut and freshly signed, he lost at the Faro 
table, and thence they found their way into general circula- 
tion. Of course, this bank failed. 

In 1847, the cashier and bookkeeper of the Bank of Vir- 
ginia, at Lynchburg, were discovered to have embezzled a 
very large amount of money belonging to that institution, 
which their gambling habits alone had induced. 

Two or three years ago the cashier of a bank in Western 
New York, found his way into Suydam's gaming house, in 
the city of New York, and after losing all his ready money, 
borrowed a large sum of the gambler, and lost that also, but 
subsequently refused to pay it, because he had borrowed it 
for gambling purposes. 

On the 2d of January, 1852, Samuel W. Morgan, teller in 
the Exchange Bank at Petersburg, Va., absconded after em- 
bezzling funds of the bank to the amount of twenty thousand 
dollars. We are not authorized to say that this delinquency 
was induced by gambling, but we presume that when the 
facts involved in the case are known, it will prove to be so.* 

* A correspondent of the Philadelphia Saturday Courier, under 
date of Petersburg, Va., July 30, 1847, says: — "This town is re- 
nowned as the residence of distinguished horse-racers, who are ' gen- 
tlemen sportsmen,' not gamblers! The number of families, which in 
the last half century have been deeply injured or utterly ruined by 
these sportsmen and others of the same cloth, w T ho have gone before 
them to their dread account, if added to the present population of this 
town, containing now twelve thousand inhabitants, would make it a 
city of twice that size, and of happiness, oh ! how changed ! Is not 
that sad havoc enough? And is it not high time that the frown of 
virtue had driven off the destroyer ? * * * * There is scarcely a county, 
and not a single town, in this old State, where the gambler has not 
made his mark, which, whether recently or remotely inflicted, still 
gives forth signs of lingering calamity and woe. 



10 INDUCED BY GAMING*. 

In 1848, a clerk in one of the Brooklyn Banks, suddenly 
disappeared, having embezzled about $40,000 of its funds, 
which he had lost at the faro-tables in New York ! 

Geo. A. Bullock, late Cashier and Teller of the Central 
Railroad and Banking Company of Georgia, like those al- 
ready mentioned, was a man of unblemished reputation, moved 
in the best society and was highly esteemed, and not sus- 
pected of having any vicious habits, but was constantly and 
privately engaged in buying Lottery Tickets, until he proved 
to be a defaulter to the Bank, of about $102,000, upon the 
discovery of which, he fled to Europe. The Bank offered a 
large reward for his apprehension, upon which Marshal Tukej r , 
of Boston, despatched an officer to England, who brought 
the fugitive back — he was tried and found guilty of the em- 
bezzlement, and is now in the Savannah prison awaiting sen- 
tence to the Penitentiary. The total loss to the Bank, by 
the embezzlement, and expences growing out of it, was about 
one hundred and ten thousand dollars ! 

Some years before this occurrence, the Planters' Bank, at 
Savannah, Ga., lost several thousand dollars in the same way, 
by a clerk who lost the money in Lottery gambling. 

In April, 1844, a check for $350, purporting to be drawn 
by a respectable house, was presented at the counter of the 
Seventh Ward Bank (New York,) and paid. On the 4th of 
May thereafter, another check, for $1000, purporting to be 
drawn by a French house, was presented and paid at the 
Bank of America, both of which proved to be forgeries, and 
subsequent!} 7 , a .young man named Blythe was arrested, and 
confessed his guilt. He also made affidavit that he had been 
in the habit of playing against a roulette in Nassau street, 
near Cedar, where on one occasion he had lost $1000 ! We 
might also mention in this connection, the fact, that the men 
who were engaged in the perpetration of the extensive forge- 
ries lately discovered,* in which young Woodruff, Roe, and 
others are implicated, established one of their gang in the 
Policy business, as he would then be better suited to their 
purposes, than if he remained, apparently, an honest, hard- 
working cartman ; thus showing the intimate connection be- 
tween crime and gambling. 

In 1849, the Merchants' Exchange Bank in Wall street was 
robbed during bank hours, of $3,700, by a man named Scanner, 
* December, 1851. 



EMBEZZLEMENTS AND FAILURES 11 

who, in a state of desperation, went directly from the Faro table, 
upon which he had lost his last dollar, to the Bank, for the 
express purpose of robbing it. He succeeded, and escaped 
with the money, but was subsequently arrested, tried and 
convicted, and is now in the State's Prison at Sing Sing, for 
the perpetration of that crime. 

During the summer of 1850, the Treasurer of one of the 
principal Rail roads, in New England (the Western,) was dis- 
covered to be a defaulter to. a large amount. He fled, was 
arrested and imprisoned. He was well known in the gam- 
bling circles of Boston, Springfield, Albany and New York, as 
a heavy Faro player; and the discovery of his' defalcation 
was a source of deep regret to the gamblers of those cities ; 
not that they mourned over his disgrace and ruin, but because 
the discovery of his peculations deprived them of a liberal 
player and a sure victim. 

These few cases, presented from a long list of similar de- 
linquencies, sufficiently illustrate the importance to monied 
institutions of sustaining an association for the suppression 
of gaming, that events so mournful and disastrous may not so 
frequently hereafter occur. 

EMBEZZLEMENTS, DEFALCATIONS AND FAILURES, BY GAMB- 
LING BUISNESS MEN AND CLERKS, IN BOSTON, 
NEW-YORK, AND OTHER CITIES. 

In the city of Boston, in February, 1833, a young man 
named Ackers, in the employ of James Read, Esq., committed 
suicide by drowning himself, whilst laboring under the terrors 
of conscience, awakened when too late, by the crime of 
gambling and embezzlement. His story is best told in the 
language of the following extracts from a petition addressed 
to Levi Lincoln, then Governor of Massachusetts, praying 
His Excellency, to suggest to the Legislature, some measures 
whereby all the States of the Union could officially combine 
against gambling : — 

" To His Excellency, Levi Lincoln, Governor of Massa- 
chusetts. 

" A young person of the age of thirty-five years, who had 
been in the employment of a mercantile house in this city, as 
clerk at an annual salary, and whose integrity and ability 



12 INDUCED BY GAMING. 

were so much relied on, as to place him for the last ten years 
in the relation of book-keeper and treasurer, has lately sunk 
under the temptation of gambling by lotteries, in a manner 
which has excited very general sympathy. The life of this 
young man had been irreproachable. In the short space of 
eight months he not only consumed all his own means, but 
nearly eighteen thousand dollars of the money of his employers, 
in purchasing Lottery tickets ; and, at last, closed his wretched 
existence by suicide." ******** 

" The immoralities and crimes connected with gambling, 
are the subjects which, in an especial manner, move us to 
address your Excellency, Young persons who are necessa- 
rily intrusted with money and property, are easily prevailed 
on by the desire of easy gain, (if not stimulated by those who 
are sure of profit, through frauds committed by the young on 
their employers,) to adventure in Lotteries, intending, per- 
haps, to replace all that they take, when fortune shall favor 
them ; which desired event, from the very nature of the haz- 
ard, never can arrive. A course of fraud is thus begun, which 
soon becomes familiar, — conscience loses its power, only to 
resume it, (as in the case alluded to,) when nothing but its 
insufferable presence is felt to announce the sacrifice of 
character, the hopes of parents, of friends, of society. 1 " 

This petition was signed by Wm. Sullivan, James Read, 
Chas. Tappan, Abbott Lawrence, S. Fairbanks, G. Tucker 
man, Wm. Sturgis and Chas. Sprague, as a Committee of the 
citizens of Boston, who had organized themselves into an 
Anti-Gambling Association. 

About two years ago, an assistant bookkeeper, in one of 
the principal hotels in Boston, upon closing the house for the 
night, abstracted from the safe eighteen hundred dollars, and 
with it made his usual visit to a gaming-house, and soon lost 
thirteen hundred dollars ! The next morning the robbery 
was discovered, as the delinquent did not return as usual to 
his duty. He was arrested ; but as he humbly confessed 
all to his employers, and implored their forgiveness and pro- 
tection, he was reinstated, and the affair not made public. 

The Boston Bee, of April 1851, relates the story of a 
young man, who, a year before, was partner in a well known 
mercantile firm of that city, who associated with the mem- 
bers of one of the fashionable Boston " club houses," and by 
degrees was caught in the toils of the gambler, and " at last, 



EMBEZZLEMENTS AND FAILURES 13 

only a few days since, was fleeced of about three thousand 
dollars" — " and," adds the Commonwealth, " this is only one 
of a thousand such cases which might be presented. 

In the month of March, 1851, Marshal Tukey made a 
descent upon some ten or twelve gaming-houses in the city 
of Boston, and arrested one hundred and twelve individuals 
whom he found in the gaming-rooms. In speaking of those 
persons, one of the Boston morning papers says : " We are 
informed by the officers that the persons arrested, represent 
all classes of society, from the business man of State street 
down to the meanest Ann street gambler." 

A few weeks ago, (Dec. 1851) the house of Mixer and 
Pitman, oil a?id candle merchants, of Milk street, Boston, 
failed for a large amount, and one of the reasons assigned 
for its failure, is t^e embezzlement of twenty-eight thousand 
dollars of its funds by I. W. Bradford, one of their clerks or 
bookkeepers. According to the Boston Commonwealth, 
Bradford had managed to escape detection by falsifying his 
books, and adds, " that the money is supposed to have been 
lost in gambling, and the defaulter, it is said, implicates par- 
ties in high standing as participators in an amusement to him 
so costly. He has disappeared, and is not to be found. This 
defalcation of a young man so undoubtingly trusted will cause 
some anxiety among merchants, and a deep scrutiny of 
books. Bradford is about thirty years of age, of good 
family, unmarried, but has a mother living. His case is an- 
other loud warning to merchants and men of property, that 
they have a deep interest in having our laws executed against 
those fashionable establishments which corrupt the morals of 
the young." 

At St. Louis, Mo., in 1842, a young man named McKin- 
ney, was utterly ruined by the gamblers of that city, although 
he never indulged in play. Being a broker, he was known 
to have a large amount of money constantly on hand, and 
was therefore an important man for the gamblers. Thev 
formed his acquaintance, and tried by various schemes to 
induce him to play, which he resolutely refused to do ; but 
as they were determined to victimize him, they altered their 
taciics. and one of them occasionally borrowed large sums 
upon short time, which he promptly paid, together with 
enormous interest, and thus established a fair business repu- 
tation with the broker, upon the faith of which he borrowed, 



14 INDUCED BY GAMING. 

on one occasion, some ten or fifteen thousand dollars, but 
failed to return it at the time specified, to the great misfortune 
and ruin of the broker. Upon investigating the state of his 
finances, Mr. McKinney found that all his own money, be- 
sides a large amount left with him on special deposit by the 
merchants of St. Louis, had thus been lost. His creditors 
divided his property among them, as the gamblers had his 
money, and destitute, disgraced and disspirited, he left the 
city, another mournful illustration of the danger of even doing 
business with gamblers. 

" At one of the ' hells ' in St. Louis," says a correspondent 
of the New York Herald, writing from that city in 1845, 
" for several weeks past, large sums have been won arid lost 
by persons not usually accounted gamblers. One of these, 
whose wealth seemed as inexhaustible as his confidence in his 
ultimate success, staked and lost at Faro, on one evening of 
last week, no less a sum than seventeen thousand dollars ! 
The loser was a partner in a highly respectable business 
firm, the senior of which was absent from the city. On the 
following day, the senior returned, and ascertained that three 
thousand dollars of the mone} 7 lost had been a special deposit 
with them ; " but although an effort w r as made, not a dollar 
of the entire sum was recovered. 

FRUITS OF GA3IING IN NEW-YORK. 

In 1829, a large mercantile house in Bremen sent a young 
man named John Borac, as confidential agent to this country, 
to represent their interests here. He knew nothing of gam- 
bling at home, but after a short residence in New York, be- 
came acquainted with some billiard- saloon gamblers, who in- 
troduced him to the gaming-room and faro-table. He became 
desperately infatuated with the game and lost deeply. His 
foreign employers, aware " that all was uot right," in the 
summer of 1831, instituted an investigation, when it was 
discovered that he was a defaulter to the amount of eighty- 
seven thousand dollars, which he had expended in the short 
space of eighteen months! He was arrested and imprisoned, 
and upon being compelled under oath to show in what manner 
he had disposed of the funds intrusted to his care, he stated that 
among other losses, he had gambled away in New Orleans, 
two thousand three hundred dollars ; in Fulton street, New 



EMBEZZLEMENTS AND FAILURES 15 

York, ten thousand dollars, and in Lumber street, New York, 
twenty-nine thousand dollars ! He was finally released from 
prison, upon which he became a gambler by profession, and 
a few years ago died in the New York Lunatic Asylum. 

During the winter of 1847, a Danish gentleman named 
Matiretz A. Suber, who was a commercial agent for a large 
house in New Orleans, made his entree into the Broadway 
and Park Place gaming-houses. At first he was a light player, 
and seldom left the table winner. After a few months spent 
in this way, he suddenly altered his manner of playing ; dis- 
played large sums of money and became the heaviest player 
at the table. The gamblers understand such appearances 
by intuition, and whispered among themselves " that some- 
thing was wrong," and so it happened, for when the Dane's 
money was nearly all lost, he was arrested at the instance of 
his New Orleans principals, upon their discovery that he had 
hypothecated or sold a large quantity of cotton they had 
consigned to him, and gambled away the proceeds. He 
promptly confessed the whole truth, the result of which was 
the arrest and imprisonment of several gamblers, and the final 
compromise of the whole matter, by the return of a paltry 
sum. 

In the summer of 1850, a Western merchant, who was so- 
journing at the Clinton Hotel, found his way into the gam- 
bling-house, No. 10 Park Place, and lost a large sum of 
money. When he had lost all but his last dollar, he rose 
from the table, and taking a draught of intoxicating liquor, 
turned towards the dealer to look again upon the fascinating 
game ; in a few moments, as if Hope had been whispering 
some flattering tale, he placed his money upon a card, and 
with an involuntary sigh, remarked, " Here I am, a thousand 
miles from home, and my last dollar upon the gaming- 
table!" 

During the last .year, a respectable Broadway bookseller, 
who was well sustained in his business by a wealthy friend, 
failed to meet his engagements. An investigation ensued, 
which resulted in the discovery that he had for a long time 
freely indulged in gaming, and that he had lost at least four- 
teen thousand dollars, to recover which, he instituted suits 
against a number of gamblers, which, however, as in all other 
cases, resulted in comparatively — nothing, but disgrace to the 
victim of the ill fated passion. 



16 INDUCED BY GAMING. 

On the 2d of December, 1851, Wm. Mootry, Esq. of Wall 
street, as the assignee of a bankrupt business man, obtained 
a judgment of $3,171 and costs, against Sherlock Hillman, 
for money won in his gaming house in Broadway, during the 
years 1849 and 1850. The ruined victim was a comb manu- 
facturer, doing business in one of the New England States, 
and in about eighteen months lost at the Faro table, all his 
capital, and failed for some 810,000 or #12,000! 

Some two years ago, a respectable business man came to 
this city from one of the interior villages of Massachusetts, 
for the purpose of doing business. He was soon introduced 
to the Faro table, and learned to play. His bad luck he 
thought was remarkable, but he continued gaming, until he 
had lost all his own money, and then borrowed about $2,600 
of a mercantile house in Broadway, which he also lost, and 
to recover which, the firm have commenced suits against the 
gamblers who won it, but, of course will never recover it. 

A few weeks since, (says The Tribune, of August 19, 
1850,) " two gentlemen who were on a visit to New York, for 
the purpose of buying merchandize, were introduced to the 
company of two gamblers, by a friend, also a merchant, 
doing business in this city ; the strangers unsuspicious of foul 
play, were induced to play at hazard with dice, at a respecta- 
ble hotel in the Fourth Ward, where at various sittings, 
they lost to the tune of $3,000. Suspecting they had been 
cheated, the country merchants laid the case before Justice 
Mountfort, who ordered the dice to be seized, when it was 
found they were loaded with quicksilver." 

On the 9th November, 1849, the New York daily papers 
announced that "a merchant from Ohio, just arrived in the 
city, on purpose to buy goods, bringing with him about $800 
in money, and letters of introduction to several large esta- 
blishments, was induced by a pretended friend to enter a 
gambling hell, and was finally persuaded to play, and lost 
about $200 before he left the table. On the following night 
he again repaired to the place, determined to win back what 
he had lost, and then forswear gambling forever — but instead 
of winning he was stripped of every cent of money he pos- 
sessed, so that he could not even pay his hotel bill." 

In commenting upon this case, the "Day Book" says — 
"Any person who will do as this Ohio merchant did, cer- 
tainly does not deserve letters of introduction ; and it is a 



EMBEZZLEMENTS AND FAILURES 17 

shameful imposition to recommend such men to the confi- 
dence of the business community here or elsewhere." 

Two or three years ago, there appeared in The Sun, the 
warning confession of a young man then in prison for the 
crime of forgery, in which he says, that he had lately been 
first salesman in a large commission store in New York, to 
which he had risen, from a boy of all work, by years of faith- 
ful adherance to the interests of his employers. At the age 
of twenty-four, he became acquainted with a number of the 
" bloods of the city/' who introduced him, among other dis- 
reputable places, to the gaming house. Of this part of his 
career he says — " After one of my visits to a gaming house, 
at which I had borrowed money from my best friend, and lost 
as fast as I borrowed, I became desperate. I knew full well 
that I could imitate the hand-writing of the cashier of the 
house in which I was employed, and determine&f to make the 
attempt. After several checks had been signed, and de- 
stroyed, I found I had succeeded. I sent a young man for 
the money, and obtained it. For a time I had escaped suspi- 
cion, but not satisfied with what I had, made a second at- 
tempt, in which I failed, was discovered, tried, found guilty 
and now await the sentence of the law/' 

A young married man, formerly a partner in a house at 
Pittsburgh, in the summer of 1844, was entrusted with $10,000 
to buy pig metal on the Cumberland river. After buying and 
paying for $1,000 worth, he fell in with a company of gamblers, 
and lost $3,000. In hopes of recovering it, he followed them 
to another place, and lost $3,000 more, Finally, he went to 
St. Louis with the balance, leaving his employers minus 
$9,000* 

On the 20th December, 1847, a law student, in the office 
of Alex. Hamilton, & Co., of Wall street, was arrested and 
confined in the Tombs, for embezzling about $800, received 
from a client, during the temporary absence of Mr. H. A 
few hours after receiving this money, he went with it to a 
gaming house in Park Place, where he had previously played, 
and lost a portion of it, to recover which, he continued play- 
ing the next day, without returning to his office, and of course, 
without success. The end of the adventure, was the loss of 
nearly the whole sum — his imprisonment, and a subsequent 
recovery from the gamblers of a small portion of the money. 
* Philadelphia Ledger. 



18 INDUCED BY GAMING. 

A few years ago, the captain and owner of a North River 
sloop, running regularly from East or West Camp to New 
York, freighted with the produce of the farmers of Columbia 
county, lost large sums of money in the gaming rooms of 
this city. He was passionately fond of the roulette and faro 
table, against both of which he played with great spirit ; and 
when his own means were exhausted, he invariably and with- 
out hesitation sported the money belonging to his confiding 
neighbors and friends, and to satisfy their demands, he was 
forced to borrow, or humbly beg the gamblers to return a 
portion of the money lost ; if his entreaties failed, he forced 
them to comply, either by personal violence or by the most 
piteous lamentations. He continued this course until death 
put an end to his wretched existence. 

At Cincinnati, in 1839 or 1840, the confidential book- 
keeper, ancibrother of a respectable bolting cloth merchant, 
took from the safe at night, twenty-eight thousand dollars, 
the whole of which he lost in the gaming room of Jonathan 
H. Green, (now the reformed gambler,) Capt. Howard, (lately 
shot in the streets of St. Louis,) and two other notorious 
gamblers. Upon the discovery of the robbery, the merchant 
called upon the gamblers, and obtained $1,200 of the money 
lost, which he alledged belonged to a friend who had left 
it with him for safe keeping. The sudden withdrawal of so 
large a sum from his business, soon after caused his failure, 
by which, those even remotely connected with him in business 
suffered. 

A few years ago a clerk in the employ of Dows & Guiteau, 
embezzled several thousand dollars from that firm, which was 
lost in the gambling rooms of New York. 

In May, 1849, a man named Davis, was convicted in the 
Court of Sessions, in New York, for obtaining goods under 
false pretenses. Before he received his sentence, he addressed 
the Court in extenuation of his offence, and said u All m} 
misfortunes are attributable to the crime of gambling." 

Within the last two or three years, a well known lawyer 
of this city, contracted the habit of playing. He soon lost 
all his property, and then, like other men, who love gam- 
bling, began to exert his ingenuity to raise more funds. He 
borrowed, until he could borrow no more — a political com- 
mittee entrusted him with $100, which in a few hours there- 
after he lost at Faro. At a gaming table, he gave a check 



EMBEZZLEMENTS AND FAILURES 19 

upon a bank where he had no funds, and lost that. A wealthy 
client in Newark, N. J., intrusted an important case to his 
management. The retaining and counsel fees were lost at 
Faro, as were some two or three hundred dollars borrowed 
of his client, under false pretenses. He gained the suit, and 
obtained a judgment of about $800, which he also received 
and lost. Previous to obtaining this suit, he had perfected a 
plan by which he intended to purchase under false pretenses, 
$2000 worth of jewelry of two of the largest houses in 
this city, but failed only because he was compelled to fly 
his country for fear his swindled Newark client would arrest 
him for felony. 

During the last eighteen months, a small company of swin- 
dlers, none of whom gamble, obtained a large amount of 
goods, by false representations, from ten or fifteen mercantile 
houses in this city. The aid of a lawyer was necessary to 
the perfection of the fraud, and the swindlers very sagaciously 
applied to a gambling attorney and counsellor, who promptly 
entered into the spirit of their speculation, and success crowned 
their efforts. 

In July, 1850, a young man applied at the Police Office 
for a warrant to arrest several gamblers for winning some 
$80 from him. They were arrested, and upon the examina- 
tion, it appeared that the young man's father lived in Con- 
necticut, was a manufacturer of silver and plated spec- 
tacles, and had sent his son to New York, with a large 
quantity of them for sale, and that they had been placed 
in the hands of a commission merchant, who advanced 
upon them about $100. With this money in his pocket, the 
young man found his way into a public gaming house ; was 
induced to play, and after losing his money, applied as above., 
for relief.* 

In 1850, an English gentleman, engaged in the liquor traf- 
fic, made his appearance in the Broadway gaming saloons, 
and was soon reduced to bankruptcy. Finding it impossible 
to do any more business in his legitimate trade, he commenced 
buying goods under false pretenses, and among others de- 
frauded Dr. Town send, who sold him a quantity of sarsapa- 
rilla, upon the proceeds of which he suddenly returned to 
England. 

A watchmaker recently prefered a complaint at the Police 
* Particulars mav be found in the Tribune. 



20 INDUCED BY GAMING. 

Office, against a number of gamblers, for winning eighty or 
ninety dollars. Upon investigation, it appeared he had lost 
a large sum, in the aggregate, and that he had actually 
pledged several watches left with him to be repaired, and 
gambled away the money in the vain hope of winning enough 
to redeem those already pledged. 

A silversmith, being a resident of the Eighth Ward, in this 
city, and in which he held a responsible office, has often lost 
at the gaming table bags of specie given to him to be manu- 
factured into silverware ; and when the last dollar was gone, 
would give vent to the agony of his soul by passionate floods 
of tears and dreadful imprecations upon the fiends who had 
ruined him. To escape from the haunts of vice, where he 
had lost wealth, reputation and happiness, he besought his 
friends, prominent among whom was Jonathan W. Allen, 
Esq., to send him to California, that he might reform and 
begin life anew. He went, but died soon after he reached 
San Francisco. 

A few months since, Mr. McKeon, the present Superin- 
tendent of Common Schools, informed us that he had just 
lost $500 by a gambling money collector, and that other 
owners of real estate had lost about $4,500 by the same in- 
dividual, whose defalcations had been occasioned by his 
gambling habits, which were not even suspected by his nu- 
merous employers. 

On a recent visit to the Tombs, the writer discovered a 
notorious gambler in close conversation with two men just 
imprisoned for passing counterfeit money. As their friend 
and associate, he had called to console and assist them in their 
new calamity. On the same corridor, standing in the door 
of his cell, was a man indicted for forgery, upon the com- 
plaint of E. W. Throing. He had been a clerk in an exten- 
sive mercantile house in this city, but had long spent his time 
and money in a " respectable" (!) raffling den in Broadway. 
Although quite an expert at throwing dice, he found it neces- 
sary to commit other crimes in order to procure the means of 
playing and of living. 

Near this unfortunate man was another prisoner, who, al- 
though a member in good standing of a Presbyterian church, 
embezzled some $200 worth of goods of Kimball. Johnson & 
Co., of John street, New York, which he pledged, and lost 
the money in a gambling house in Park Place ; he then pur- 



EMBEZZLEMENTS AND FAILURES 21 

chased goods of other houses, to the amount of several hun- 
dred dollars, under false pretenses, pledged them also, and 
lost the proceeds at the Faro table, and was finally arrested 
at the instance of Reinhard, Starling & McMurdie, of Court- 
landt street, whom he had thus defrauded, and is now a most 
wretched inmate of the city prison. 

In addition to the embezzlements and failures necessarily re- 
sulting from the gambling habits of business men, the gaming 
room has, in every age and country, been the nursery of 
crime, — it is there, that broken and desperate men, whom 
the gaming table has made bankrupt in fortune and in morals, 
concoct and perfect schemes, whereby they may obtain the 
means of gratifying their passion for play ; even though 
these schemes involve petty theft, bold highway robbery, 
forgery or any other subtle fraud, or even murder itself, if the 
shedding of blood will but secure the end desired. 

It was the boast of the notorious Crockford, of London, 
the keeper of the most destructive gambling hell on earth, 
that he " ruined a nobleman every day/' and we can say with 
truth, that every day adds to the number of clerks, confiden- 
tial agents, merchants, and other business men, who are deeply 
injured, if not ruined, directly or indirectly, through the in- 
strumentality of the gaming table. 

The reader has been presented with a variety of cases 
selected from a vast number in our possession, to illustrate 
the influence of gambling upon the business interests of this 
country, and we ask you, as a business man, to protect your 
own interest, and that of your neighbor, in which you are con- 
cerned, by aiding us to suppress this great and growing vice. 

THE REMEDY. 

A little more than a year ago, the attention of a number of 
citizens was directed in an especial manner to the subject 
under discussion, which resulted in their voluntarily organiz- 
ing themselves into an Association for the Suppression of 
Gaming. The Society is composed of gentlemen, who with 
a full knowledge of the gigantic proportions and power of 
the vice to be assailed have boldly resolved to execute a series 
of measures, adequate to the end desired, without shrinking 
from any sacrifice, cost or responsibility which the enterprise 
may involve. 



22 INDTJDED BY GAMING. 

The Association will attempt the suppression of gaming 
principally by the following means : — 

First : By opening what may properly be called an Intelli- 
gence Office, by means of which Merchants, Banking, Insur- 
ance Companies, and all other public institutions may learn 
whether persons in their employ, or with whom they have 
pecuniary dealings, are wasting their substance at the gaming 
table. This feature will certainly be commended and patron- 
ized by every business man who wisely regards his own in- 
terest, which is so closely identified with the honesty and 
financial integrity of clerks, factors and creditors. The cases 
cited, demonstrate that, but for this very knowledge, vast sums 
of money belonging to individuals or incorporated institutions 
have been squandered at the gaming table, by dishonest or 
improvident clerks, agents or officers. 

Business men and incorporated institutions can far better 
afford to spend a few dollars to prevent these evils by the 
exposure or removal of their cause, than to meet such losses, 
accompanied, as they often are, with the sad fall of trusted 
agents. 

Another object to be attained by this measure is, the Rescue 
of the Gambler's Victim. 

Gaming is pursued, for the most part, in secret ; hence 
those infatuated by the vice freely indulge, fearless of that 
public observation which would injure their reputation and 
credit. It is now proposed to remove, so far as practicable, 
this shield of secrecy, and thus expose to the view of the 
interested the gambling habits of those who feed and sustain 
the hordes of swindling and robbing gamblers who infest all 
our larger villages and cities. Our plans to effect this ob- 
ject are so perfect that the name, occupation and place of 
business of almost every clerk and business man, who now 
gambles, or who may hereafter become a gambler's victim, 
will be registered in a book kept for that purpose, which, 
however, will be exhibited to those only who are specially 
concerned. With a knowledge of this fact no man, except 
he be entirely lost, will deliberately take his seat at the 
gaming table. In this way, therefore, we hope to close the 
doors of the gambling houses to the uninitiated, and redeem 
those who are not past redemption. 

Persons desiring the benefit of the Intelligence Office, must 
subscribe specially for this purpose. 



EMBEZZLEMENTS AND FAILURES 23 

Such subscribers, on paying the sums hereinafter specified, 
shall be entitled to all the information in possession of the 
office relative to the gambling habits of individuals in their 
employ or confidence, on their application for such informa- 
tion. 

The following contributions shall entitle the contributors 
to the benefit of the Intelligence office : — 

Banking Assosiations, $100 per annum. 

Insurance Companies, 100 " 

Railroad Companies, 100 " 

Bankers and Banking Agencies, 50 c 

Manufacturing Associations," from $25 to. . . . 100 " 
Other Associations, employing a number of 

clerks and officers, $25 to. . . . 100 " 
Merchants, Jobbers, &c, employing ten hands 

or less 10 " 

Do. do., from ten to twenty hands, .... 15 " 

Do. do., from twenty to fifty hands .... 25 " 

Do. do., over fifty hands,. .. . 100 " 

A few illustrations will show how little a portion of the 
business community understand or appreciate this branch of 
our operations. 

We presented its claims to a certain raiload company, but 
they could not see how they could possibly be benefited by 
such an agency ; yet we knew that two of their conductors 
spent at least three nights in each week at the Faro tables in 
this city. 

A wealthy shipping-house could manage their own affairs 
without our assistance ; but we knew that a man connected 
with them in business had already lost fifty thousand dollars 
at Faro, and was a heavy and constant player, of which fact 
they were entirely ignorant. 

A merchant was quite certain that we could be of no ser- 
vice to him as he never played, and his clerks were all highly 
recommended before he employed them ; but we knew that 
his head bookkeeper was losing from fifty to one hundred 
dollars a night, and that his salary was not more than a 
thousand dollars a year, so that he was, of course, losing his 
employer's money, to which the gamblers made no objec- 
tions. 

The senior partner of another repectable house, was con- 
fident that we could be of no service to him ; but we knew 
that both his partner and their head bookkeeper were deep 



24 INDUCED BY GAMING. 

players, and that the firm had lost thirty thousand by a 
gambling customer. 

The head of another house, was quite certain that our in- 
stitution could be of no possible benefit to merchants — and 
certainly none to himself. Subsequently, learning the gam- 
ing habits of his own partner, we sent for him, and with deep 
emotion, he pledged himself to us, that he would abandon 
the Faro table, and cease to drink, gamble and fight with 
blacklegs ! 

Second : By affording such advice and succor to those who 
have been victimized by gamblers, (and they are becoming 
quite numerous) as may be necessary to the proper and cer- 
tain administration of Law and Justice. With a view to this 
end, able and experienced Counsel will be retained by the 
Association. 

Third : By enforcing existing laws against Gaming, Lot- 
teries and Policies, whenever there is an opportunity to do so. 

Fourth : By popular lectures and by the general circulation 
of books, tracts, &c, on the subject of gambling, by which 
means all classes of citizens will be duly warned of the danger 
of gaming, and of associating with those who indulge in play. 

Fifth : By pursuing any other measures, which may seem 
necessary to the consummation of the end desired. 

These are the measures by which we hope to overturn the 
strong holds of this enormity— its secrecy, and consequent 
impunity. We are persuaded that it can not abide the sun- 
light of truth. This we aim to pour upon it. 

Facts might be multiplied, until fathers and guardians, mer- 
chants and bankers, with a common anxiety would inquire, 
whose home and whose interests are safe ? In very truth, all 
are concerned in the suppression of this secret, insidious and 
ruinous vice. 

But our enterprise will depend for support, not alone on the 
good wishes, but on the practical co-operation of all whose 
interests may be betrayed, or affections deceived. 

Without the pecuniary aid, as essential in movements of 
philanthropy, as in the operations of commerce, we must 
withdraw from the work, and leave it clear for the allurement 
of our young men into the hell of the Gambler, to the ruin 
of confiding employers, and the crushing fond and trusting 
hearts. We appeal to you, men of business, parents, chris- 
tians, shall this he so ? 



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